My longest attempt yet - .25 cal RTI - 291 yds

[jdanvers]

In a nutshell - Molly (my dog ) and I set out to one of my farm permissions as I recently discovered a nice big field near one of the farmers other properties. He's given me permission to do pretty much whatever I want - cool! I wanted to get the .25 ranged out to 150 - 160 yds and mark up the top turret. That done we were going to cut out and leave as we had been there for about an hour or so and the bugs / flies, mosquitoes, etc . . . . were *REALLY* starting to get on my nerves and painfully chowing down on my legs. It was *windy* too . . . 10-15mph, left to right. I decided spur of the moment that I was going to run the last target - the furthest one with the 8" splatter target on it - all the way out to the far side of the field just for the hell of it. ( I asked Molly what she thought of the idea but she declined to answer - she just wagged her tail and wanted to go run back out in the field ) So we did. I had no idea how far it was going to be but suspected that we could possibly be pushing 300'ish yards. 291 is what it wound up being.

My strelok is generally pretty good / close at getting me in the ball park on the verticals (elevation). All day on this outing it was telling me way to much on the l-r holds for wind. I wound up (basically) using 50%-75% of what it might tell me for a given range. So - for this one @291 yards - it had me dial up 168 clicks. With my scope - a Blackhound 6-24x50 - that would be 3 full turns plus another 18 clicks. Strelok was telling me almost 4 mil of hold off to the left (3.9). First shot I only held off 2 - didn't even hit it near as I could tell. Second shot I held off 3 - Booyah!! "Holy poop!" I'm saying to myself . . . Damned flies / bugs are biting the hell outta me now and I'm actually getting PO'd about 'em because they are creating quite the distraction. I "quickly" send shots 3 & 4 and near as I can tell - no impact. I'm done though - the damned bugs win. It wasn't until I got to with 30 or 40 yards of the thing when I did see a second strike on it. No clue when that was ( shot 1, 3 or 4 ) I'd wager 3 or 4 as I know for a fact I only held off 2 on shot #1 - but who knows. I wouldn't mind going back up there and trying this again on a non-windy day.

First pic - overall scene from my little shooting table - you can't even see the target
Second pic - a zoomed in version of the 1st
Third pic - self explanatory

 

[steve123]

That's a long way off. Congrats.

 

[Ranchibi]

Oh YEAH! Those are 2 special shots there....especially with bugs chewing on you... Was out flying drones with my wife this early morning as the sun rose at a park and the skeetos were making me their personal buffet even though I had sprayed deet on both of us, they didn't bite her once! I quit early like you, couldn't take it!

 

[Ferk48]

Very interesting! Wondering what ammo and fpe was needed to reach that range? I’ve reached out to about 160 hitting a 14x14 sheet of wood with my hatsan at 44 using slugs and the StrelokPro app

 

[HubenK1Sniper92]

I really don’t understand why everybody is trying to shoot airguns this far, just seems silly, by the time it gets that far your lucky to have enough power to go through an empty pop can and lucky to hit a target the size of a large pizza box, my opinion is that airguns air best suited for 125yds and less for paper punching and hunting… let the long shots for the powder burners.. again just my opinion and you know what they say about opinions to each their own though

 

[HubenK1Sniper92]

Very interesting! Wondering what ammo and fpe was needed to reach that range? I’ve reached out to about 160 hitting a 14x14 sheet of wood with my hatsan at 44 using slugs and the StrelokPro app

It’s says right on the pic what ammo, javelin 32g slugs

 

[Frank1738]

NICE!

 

[jdanvers]

Very interesting! Wondering what ammo and fpe was needed to reach that range? I’ve reached out to about 160 hitting a 14x14 sheet of wood with my hatsan at 44 using slugs and the StrelokPro app

@Ferk48 - as @HubenK1Sniper92 pointed out - 32g javelins. .250's specifically - the .251's didn't fly as well. I've got a fixed reg in it @175 bar and the slugs fly between 955-960fps. ( it averaged out to 957 over a 10 shot string when I was first tuning it ) Even at that distance ( according to strelok ) it's still packing 30 ft/lbs of energy which will certainly punch through a soda can.

 

[davhowrd]

I really don’t understand why everybody is trying to shoot airguns this far, just seems silly, by the time it gets that far your lucky to have enough power to go through an empty pop can and lucky to hit a target the size of a large pizza box, my opinion is that airguns air best suited for 125yds and less for paper punching and hunting… let the long shots for the powder burners.. again just my opinion and you know what they say about opinions to each their own though

Some of us just LOVE the challenge of pushing limits and setting new boundaries. Everyone has there likes.

 

[steve123]

I really don’t understand why everybody is trying to shoot airguns this far, just seems silly, by the time it gets that far your lucky to have enough power to go through an empty pop can and lucky to hit a target the size of a large pizza box, my opinion is that airguns air best suited for 125yds and less for paper punching and hunting… let the long shots for the powder burners.. again just my opinion and you know what they say about opinions to each their own though

It highly depends on the airgun, power level, and projectile.

After experimenting with pellets in 17, 22, 25, and 30, I quit shooting them past 75Y for the most part. Occasionally I will if there's light winds. Past around 150Y it does get a bit silly. For whatever reason I can get decent groups at 90Y but at 100Y things start to fall apart in the vertical. All these heavier pellets are all around .05-ish G1 BC.

Slugs/bullets are a different story. I use NSA 25 cal 29gr slugs with a .075 G1 BC at 65 fpe in my Uragan King and they do quite well out to 200Y. It's the wind that causes a hindrance because of still using a low BC bullet but one can't help but notice how superior these are than pellets past a certain point in distance. I had great success shooting prairie dogs out to 167Y a few months ago with these and it wasn't calm out.
Here's some 200Y groups on a calm day.

Next is a 10 shot group also at 200Y but using 22 cal .142 G1 BC slugs. I swage these myself out of wire which costs $160 for a 25lb spool that makes 4400 slugs. Dirt cheap to shoot my gun with and don't blow in the wind near as much as the previous slugs mentioned above.

Next is out of a 25 cal Vulcan 3 at 99fpe using Altaros slugs with a .245 G1 BC. This is 421Y. 12 for 12 and it was windy.

I have very nice powder burners that I use for LR and ELR but it costs much more money to shoot them, are loud, barrels get hot, barrels need replacing, use of recoil management, and the list doesn't stop there.

Its all fun within the constraints of fps and BC!!! Basically for me if the hit ratio becomes so low that the joy is lost its time to refrain by that point.

 

[EPG]

After experimenting with pellets in 17, 22, 25, and 30, I quit shooting them past 75Y for the most part. Occasionally I will if there's light winds. Past around 150Y it does get a bit silly. For whatever reason I can get decent groups at 90Y but at 100Y things start to fall apart in the vertical. All these heavier pellets are all around .05-ish G1 BC.

This is also what I’ve found - experimenting with .177, .22, .25 and .30 pellets…

… you can get really good consistency out to 75 - 80 yards. Past 80 yards and it gets much tougher if there is any significant breeze… and there is almost always significant breeze if you’ve ever walked a 100 yard target course and paid attention to the breeze at various points along the way - its different at 25 than at 50 etc.

It’s almost as if 80 yards is near the limit of the design parameters of the diabolo shaped pellet. Past 80 its a bit of a guessing game.

I’m just getting into .30 cal - so I’m going to see if it’s significantly better than 34g .25 caliber @ 100 yards.

 

[silvershooter589]

I really don’t understand why everybody is trying to shoot airguns this far, just seems silly, by the time it gets that far your lucky to have enough power to go through an empty pop can and lucky to hit a target the size of a large pizza box, my opinion is that airguns air best suited for 125yds and less for paper punching and hunting… let the long shots for the powder burners.. again just my opinion and you know what they say about opinions to each their own though

It's all fun and games in the end... until the day comes you need to make a shot like that... you're starving to death and the last squirrel alive is at 200 yard range. You make that shot, you live another day.

Or even less drastically thinking, it's fun to see how far you can hit stuff and make a hole in 'em

 

[HubenK1Sniper92]

It's all fun and games in the end... until the day comes you need to make a shot like that... you're starving to death and the last squirrel alive is at 200 yard range. You make that shot, you live another day.

Or even less drastically thinking, it's fun to see how far you can hit stuff and make a hole in 'em

Ya agreed, but until they can get airguns able to hit the target that far consistently like MOA and not have to have some kind of crazy 100 moa scope rail lol I’ll stick to 100yds and less and leave the long range shooting to my powder burners again to each their own and happy shooting

 

[steve123]

Ya agreed, but until they can get airguns able to hit the target that far consistently like MOA and not have to have some kind of crazy 100 moa scope rail lol I’ll stick to 100yds and less and leave the long range shooting to my powder burners again to each their own and happy shooting

It's a Catch 22 for me and this is my "why".

The V3 actually does better than my expensive 22rf using good ammo in the wind by a decent margin. This 22rf is a tad more precise at 50Y but by 100Y it's pretty much the same, then because of the higher ES of most 22rf ammo it has worse vertical farther out.

17hmr has poor ES, low BC, and its not easy to see splash on steel or where we hit in the grass father out. Because of this I outshot my friend out to 300Y with my Thomas HPX using those 42gr slugs. On a calmer day and if he could have seen where he was missing he would have outshot me.

22 Magnum also has poor ES except its going 2000 fps or so which tames the vertical a bit at distance. Definitely not as precise as either my 22rf or the V3. 1.75" at 100Y is a good group for mine. Easier to see splash on steel or in the grass.

My little 5mmFBI sends a 32gr vmax at 3760 fps with low ES and is sub MOA. The problem is its kinda boring on my steel. I shoot and hit the six steel out to 300Y then hit the turkey at 421Y then back in the case it goes. Yeah for serious varminting its a great choice but its overkill for much of the shooting I do out to 400Y. It's great for coyotes too.
It's the same thing with my more powerful PB's until 700Y or so.

So in my case where my friends and I shoot, and the distances we shoot at most often, I/we get at least as much pleasure with lower powered airguns, and myself the more powerful slug airguns shooting farther out.

Thankfully there is a bit of a crossover between airguns and PB's for some purposes.

 

[Ferk48]

@Ferk48 - as @HubenK1Sniper92 pointed out - 32g javelins. .250's specifically - the .251's didn't fly as well. I've got a fixed reg in it @175 bar and the slugs fly between 955-960fps. ( it averaged out to 957 over a 10 shot string when I was first tuning it ) Even at that distance ( according to strelok ) it's still packing 30 ft/lbs of energy which will certainly punch through a soda can.

Absolutely fantastic! Thank you.